The station is officially referred to by the State Railway of Thailand as Sathani Rotfai Krung Thep in Thai and Bangkok Station in English. Hua Lamphong is the informal name of the station, used by both foreign travellers and locals. The station is often named as Hua Lamphong in travel guide books and in the public press. In other areas of Thailand the station is commonly referred to as Krungthep Station, and the name Hua Lamphong is not well-known. In all documents published by the State Railway of Thailand the station is uniformly transcribed as Krungthep in Thai. There are a number of suggestions for the origin of the name Hua Lamphong. A common explanation is that it came from the wordWua Lamphong shortened from a former name for the area Thung Woa Lamphong meaning "The Field Of Wild Oxen". An alternative explanation is that it was derived from the word Lamphong which is a plant that has toxic effects. It is also proposed that the name may have a Malay origin as a mixture of Khua in Thai, meaning "bridge", and the word Lamphung in Malay meaning "temporary". Loi Khua Lumphung meaning a temporary bridge then become known as Hua Lamphong by the Thais.
History
The station was opened on 25 June 1916 after six years of construction that started in 1910 in the reign of King Chulalongkorn and finished in the reign of King Vajiravudh. The site of the railway station was previously occupied by the national railway's maintenance centre, which moved to Makkasan in June 1910. At the nearby site of the previous railway station a pillar commemorates the inauguration of the Thai railway network in 1897. The station was built in an Italian Neo-Renaissance-style, with decorated wooden roofs and stained glass windows, with the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof in Germany as a prototype. The front of the building was designed by Turin-born Mario Tamagno, who with countryman Annibale Rigotti was also responsible for the design of several other early 20th century public buildings in Bangkok. The pair designed Bang Khun Phrom Palace, Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall in the Royal Plaza and Suan Kularb Residential Hall and Throne Hall in Dusit Garden, among other buildings. There are 14 platforms, 26 ticket booths, and two electric display boards. Hua Lamphong serves over 130 trains and approximately 60,000 passengers each day. Since 2004 the station has been connected by an underground passage to the MRT subway system's Hua Lamphong MRT Station. The station is also a terminus of the Eastern and Oriental Expressluxury trains, and the International Express to Malaysia. On 25 June 2019, the 103rd anniversary of Hua Lamphong was celebrated with a Google Doodle.
Closure
The station is scheduled to be closed for being main railway station in 2021, when it will be converted into a museum. The station will change its official name to Hua Lamphong station. The State Railway of Thailand plans to move Bangkok's central station to Bang Sue Grand Station.
